“He’s not much better than his brother, I’m afraid. I haven’t even told you everything. This is why it was so easy for Rodolfo to convince a lot of people that Liam was into something illegal. Why he disappeared and stayed in hiding.”
“Was your sister…” Elain didn’t know any good way to finish that sentence, so she didn’t.
“No. Not to my knowledge. My sister and brother-in-law were both good people. They hated me, if that says anything.” He gave her a sad smile. “I would suggest that the only real answer to that question would require going back to Asolo’s and reading him again. I heard he was closest to them in the years before their deaths.”
“No, thank you.” She sensed something. “Tell me how they died?”
“My sister and brother-in-law? An auto accident. No, I wasn’t involved.”
She studied him for a moment. “What aren’t you telling me about Asolo?”
It took him a moment to answer. “Asolo’s mate suffocated one of their babies,” Marston said. “They were in a massive financial bind and had taken out that life insurance offered on babies. Morbid, really, to insure your child. But the death was declared inconclusive. What they would likely call SIDS today, and not investigated beyond that, because it was back in the late 1960s. They didn’t have the technology then that they do now. Asolo might have suspected, but he didn’t question her version of the events, either, and played the distraught father rather well.”
Elain stared at him. “Motherfucker,” she muttered. “How did you find that out?”
“She told Rodolfo. He told me.”
“How do you know it was the truth?”
“Because before I took her head off, she admitted it to me.” He studied his feet for a moment. “I know what you think of me, Elain, but I never harmed a child for profit. Before you bring up Brussels, I don’t count cockatrice children and co-conspirators who were already indoctrinated to hate other shifters. I feel absolutely no remorse over executing a child killer. Especially a parent who did it for profit.”
Elain was beginning to hate Marston a little less with every sickening revelation.
Mainly because she would have been tempted to take the woman’s head off, too.
“And Boyd’s mate? Why’d she earn a death sentence?”
“She was babysitting for a human friend back in the 1950s. There was a house fire and only she escaped. She’d gotten herself drunk, fell asleep on the couch with a lit cigarette, and only by a miracle did she stumble out the door. Two-story house, in a rural area much like Asolo’s house. No cell phones to call for help back then. By the time someone noticed the flames and called for assistance, she’d sobered up and…”
He shrugged. “Boyd, not wanting to see his mate and the mother of his children in jail, helped cover up for her plenty of times. Worse, enabled her drinking and driving and never took the keys away from her.”
Elain shoved her gun at him and raced for the bathroom, where she dropped to her knees and retched into the toilet. It took her a few minutes to quit feeling too shaky to stand again. She rinsed her mouth out in the sink and turned to find Marston standing there in the doorway.
“How many?” she gasped. “How many kids died in the fire?”
“Four. All human children.” He stared at the floor. “Rodolfo was very thorough in his research. He discovered the old newspaper report and confronted her with it. They moved after it happened, but Rodolfo was always very thorough when it came to blackmail. He threatened to tell everyone.”
“But how’d he know she was drunk?”
“He guessed. It wasn’t difficult. She’d also been in over a dozen DUI accidents since the 1940s. It’s a miracle she’d never killed anyone in those.”
“And you…”
He slowly nodded. “I made her confess that she stood there, staring at the upstairs windows and hearing the kids screaming as the flames engulfed the house. She made no attempt to rescue them. She was still too drunk. And it was her cigarette which caused the blaze. My conscience is clear, in that regard.”
“Gaille O’Donnell? Nardel’s mate?”
“Worked in the office of a Catholic school in Boston and helped conceal a pedophilic priest’s actions for nearly twenty years. He raped and molested at least thirty boys. While she, however, took in quite a tidy cash stipend every week in her pay envelope, in addition to what they made from Rodolfo on the side. Nardel knew. Taken right from the collection plates before it was counted. She covered for the priest.”
She stared at his hands for a moment, then reached out to him.
He’d apparently left the guns in the living room because his hands were empty. When she clasped his right hand, now she knew exactly what she wanted to find. Before, when she’d searched through his mind, she’d never gone deep, had skimmed over the events, just “seeing” the actual events more as a summary rather than in stark detail and confirming he was telling the truth.
Now she wanted the details.
She got more than she bargained for.
By the time she released him, she slumped against the wall and stared into his eyes.
He met her gaze with an even one of his own. “Sometimes the people with nothing to lose are the most dangerous,” he softly said. “I had nothing to lose by removing them from the realm of the living. Was I a coward? Yes. I wanted to preserve my own hide, I’ll admit it. I had no desire to die by Rodolfo’s hands, even though when I look back on it now I realize I didn’t truly give a damn about living any longer. I also knew that had I revealed this to any other shifters, no one would have believed me. Rodolfo was very careful to whom he doled out information. No one would have believed me had I said anything. I had engaged in enough character assassination of myself that Rodolfo was far more credible than I. I knew he was setting me up by sending me out to do his dirty work. I simply didn’t care.”
“You had a death wish.”
“Admittedly, yes. That is a fair statement. It took me having something dear to want to continue living for to realize how long I’d inadvertently tried to die.”
“What the hell am I going to do with you?” she muttered.
“You mean regarding Lina?”
“No. Frickin’ Santa Claus. Of course I mean Lina.”
He smiled. “Hide me until Colleen is eighteen, then accidentally reveal my existence and let her off me so your hands are clean?”
The thought sickened Elain. “No,” she softly said.
His smile faded. “You won’t let me die, will you?”
“No. I can’t.”
He sadly sighed. “And here I bloody well made an oath to you, so I can’t off myself, either.”
“Buck up, Uncle Mars,” she said. “At least I don’t want to kill you anymore.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The visits to Boyd and Nardel went not quite as well as their visit to Asolo. Elain had about three breaths where she had held her gun on Boyd and was pretty sure she was going to splatter his brains all over his Laura Ashley wallpaper before Marston cleared his throat.
Nardel ended up with a broken wrist.
They also confirmed Marston’s version of events, and why they hadn’t asked the Clan for help to catch their mates’ killers.
Because they were worried it would dig up information they’d rather lay hidden, even at the risk of Marston not being brought to justice.
After stopping by Callie’s to unlock the bedroom door and thank her for the cover story, Elain had appeared in Lacey’s kitchen. It was Jasper who gave her away, bouncing in with a happy wag of his tail as Elain went straight to the cabinet holding Jocko’s stash of liquor and pulled down the bottle of the strongest stuff in there.
Lacey walked in. “How is…he, anyway?”
Elain poured herself a coffee mug of whiskey, straight, and downed half of it. It went down almost hot, burning her throat the entire way. “He says hi.” She coughed, topped off the mug, and took another swig.
“I’m guessing his hide
’s intact?”
Elain nodded before lifting the mug to tip the last of the fluid down her throat.
She refilled it.
“Did you learn anything new?”
Elain snorted. “Define ‘new’?”
“Did you learn anything pertinent to the investigation?”
“Ooh, now we sound like the Scooby Gang again.”
Lacey did the arched eyebrow thing at Elain. Unlike when one of her men sometimes did it to her, in no way, shape, or form did it come off as sexy.
It came off as a grandmother scolding her.
Which sort of surprised Elain to realize. Yes, all her life, until meeting her men, she’d had a very tiny circle of family and friends. No grandmother.
Now, she had Lacey.
“I learned that Asolo, Boyd, and Nardel had no additional information to offer me regarding the nuclear vision, cockatrice, nor are they people I want anywhere near my family.”
“Does Liam know that?”
“He will,” Elain darkly said.
“Know what about whom?”
Elain chalked it up to the booze she’d just chugged to the fact that she’d missed her mom’s appearance in the kitchen doorway.
“Might as well tell her,” Lacey said. “Don’t hide the truth about them from her.”
Her mom walked over and sat down while Lacey got up to go watch the babies.
“Tell me what?” her mom said.
When she did the eyebrow arch, it made Elain blush and feel like she was five years old again.
Leaving out the part about Marston, Elain told her mom what she’d learned about Liam’s brothers and Nardel.
And their…guilt.
Her mom stared at the table’s surface for a moment before she pointed at Elain’s mug. “Where does Lacey keep the booze?”
“You’re my designated driver.”
“I’ll drive you,” Lacey called from the living room. “Long as you poof me back here.”
“Damn you and your lupine hearing,” Elain yelled back. “But no, she needs to stay sober today.” Elain stared at the mug. She was starting to feel a buzz from the booze. “I need you to stay sober.” She met her mom’s gaze, tears filling her eyes. “I wanted one thing, one damn thing, to go okay for Dad. Now I have to tell him this.”
“You don’t have to tell him.”
“Oh, yeah, I kinda do, because I know he won’t want them around the kids, either.”
Her mom reached over and covered Elain’s hand with hers. “Honey,” she gently said, “let me rephrase that. You are not telling him. I’m telling him.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t lie to him, and he’ll know it’s the truth.”
Elain stared at her, blinking for a moment, stunned by the simplicity of her plan. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” She squeezed Elain’s hand before letting go. “If he asks me how I got the info, I’ll ‘Seer Says’ him. Tell him that I wasn’t told that.”
“Well, technically, I didn’t tell you everything.”
Her mom smiled. “All the better.” She stood. “Let me go get the babies changed.” She nodded toward Elain’s mug. “Good thing we still have breast milk. Ellie’s going to be due to nurse soon.”
Elain looked into the mug. “Shit. I’m a horrible mother.”
“No, you’re under a lot of stress. Dr. Alberto told you today if you wanted to start her on formula that you could. Especially since she’s already cutting a tooth.”
Still staring at the amber liquid in her mug, she sighed.
When her mom was gone and Lacey returned, the old Seer sat next to her at the table.
Then Lacey actually giggled. “Mai’s daughter will be a joy.”
“BettLynn.”
“No.” She looked at Elain, a smile on her face.
It took her a moment to get it. Elain blamed it on the booze quickly working its way through her system. “No. Way.”
“Way. Souls can be fluid. It’s even more poetic justice that he’s born not only to a coyote he tried to kill, but as a woman, a gender he unleashed plenty of horrific acts upon in his life. But then again, she will be a new person with new opportunities.”
“You saw…?”
“Enough.”
“Too much?”
Lacey shook her head. “Shades of grey.”
* * * *
Elain wasn’t entirely sure she could repeat her poofing act back to the minivan.
Especially since she was now totally tanked.
Is there a law against drunk poofing? PUI—poofing under the influence?
She did a test poof with herself first, and safely made it. Returning to Lacey’s, she brought her mom first, then the babies, one at a time.
“Come back,” Lacey said before Elain could make her final trip with Ellie.
“We will. In a couple of weeks.”
“No, I mean now.”
“Why?”
Lacey pointed down at Jasper, who looked up at her and started wagging.
“Uh, I didn’t tell the guys I was coming up here. How am I supposed to explain coming back with Jasper?”
“Seer Says.”
Elain stared at him before she pointed. “You turn out to be some evil shit-weasel, I’m turning you into a literal hot dog.”
He wagged harder, chuffing at her as if amused.
“How long?” Elain asked.
“Let’s call it a trial run.” Her smile faded. “Two words—baby monitors.”
Elain blanched.
“Please, take him. I’d feel better.”
“What have you seen?”
“Nothing yet. I was told that by a certain someone. Feel free to tell your guys I asked you to watch him for me for a couple of weeks. Because I am asking you to watch him for me for a couple of weeks.”
Jasper looked back and forth between the women as if he could understand every word.
“Get his leash. I’ll be right back.”
* * * *
Elain had her mom pull over at the northern rest area on the Sunshine Skyway so she could get out and puke.
“You all right?”
“No.”
Her mom handed her a lukewarm bottle of water from the center console so Elain could rinse and spit.
“Do I want to know what else you know?” her mom asked.
Elain shook her head.
She’d told her mom the basics, enough that she could convince Elain’s dad to never want to be within the same state as his brothers.
But fortunately her mom couldn’t see what Elain had seen.
When they returned home to Arcadia, Elain’s mom took control of the kids and Jasper, took them over to her house, and sent Elain in to take a nap, telling the men to give her some alone time to nap.
Elain locked herself in the master bathroom and took a shower, resting her head against the wall, tears silently falling as she tried to forget what she’d seen when she’d gripped the men’s hands.
Marston was no angel.
What did it say about her that she wished she could buy the fucker a drink for what he’d done? That she actually thought he’d shown great self-restraint in only killing the mates and not the men, too?
Shutting off the water, she towel-dried her hair, pulled on an old T-shirt and shorts, and left her phone behind.
Having been there before, she knew where Asolo lived.
And he lived alone.
He was in his bathroom, examining the damage to his nose in the mirror. When he spotted her behind him, he let out a scream of horror before she grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to the wall.
“What else did you do, hmm?” she growled. “You let your wife kill your baby for the money. But that’s not all you did, is it? You raped your wife’s little sister and drowned her. They thought she fell in, but she threatened to tell everyone what you did.”
“Bloody hell, I was a kid! And she wasn’t a shifter. They already had too many mouths to feed.”
> “You were in your thirties! And she was only eighteen!” Elain screamed in his face, spittle hitting him in the eyes and making him blink.
“Different times back then, and she’d wanted it until I gave it to her. Bloody tease. If she hadn’t threatened me, she’d still be alive.”
“How did your parents—my grandparents—really die, hmm?”
She didn’t need the answer.
With her grip around his neck, she easily found it.
There was a reason he was willing to go along with his mate suffocating one of their young children for insurance, because it wasn’t the first time they’d killed.
Elain let out a long, deep breath.
“Good-bye, Asolo.”
She turned out his lights.
Permanently.
* * * *
Late that night, Elain eased herself out of bed and went to sit on the front porch steps with Jasper, Juju, and Bea. She stared at the horses grazing in the yard.
She smelled him before she heard him, his distinctive but pleasant cologne.
“Hey, Ryan.”
He walked over and sat next to Jasper, who nosed his hand until Ryan petted him.
“Glad he likes you,” she noted.
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“He’s…special.”
“I’m glad.”
Silence lay between them.
It took him twenty minutes before he finally spoke again. “I have three dead wolf shifters to deal with.”
“Yeah? Really? Huh. Imagine that.”
Another fifteen minutes of silence.
“Care to elucidate?” he asked.
Unfortunately, the effects of the booze had worn off hours before. She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers at him, choosing to show rather than tell.
After a few minutes, she dropped his hand and arched an eyebrow at him.
He slowly nodded.
Then he held his arm out to her.
Jasper, without asking him to, got out of the way so Elain could scoot over, lean against Ryan, and cry on his shoulder for a few minutes while he draped his arm around her.
Kind of like the big brother she’d never had.
“Please don’t make a habit of this,” he whispered.